Preventing littering and providing public safety outside the Haines townsite are right and worthy goals. How best to achieve those goals is the issue before the Haines Borough Assembly. The borough administration has proposed a major restructuring of local garbage service, including a 1 percent hike in sales tax and borough participation in waste management, in order to eliminate the…
Some people in Haines are ask me why I’m running for the Legislature when there is still so much to be done on the Haines Borough Assembly. Believe me, I’d rather keep my focus on Haines. The problem is that some of the biggest issues we deal with in Haines — and on the Haines Assembly — are responding to…
On Tuesday, April 10, 2018, we assembly members approved a permit for another new tour along the Chilkoot River. We did this despite concern from the Haines Borough’s own tourism office that the situation between bears and people along the Chilkoot corridor desperately needs to be addressed, as well as similar comments from visitors and current tour permit holders. Lower…
It’s hard to know where to begin to pick up all the pieces following revelations that Karl Ward, one of our town’s most honored citizens, sexually abused young people, perhaps for years. Certainly our town failed to protect some of its most innocent and vulnerable members, who paid a terrible price for our lack of vigilance. That hurts, but it…
The proposed University of Alaska timber sale is so big, so far-reaching and so sudden, a person can’t help but wonder where it came from and why. For about 70 years, the university has held 13,000 acres of forest in the Chilkat Valley, property it received around the time of Alaska statehood to develop or exploit as a source of…
We’re in a bind at the Lutak Dock. Let’s take action now so that we’re never in a bind like this again. Here’s the story. About 50 years ago, the U.S. Army gave Haines the Lutak Dock. The Army had built the earthen embankment dock in the mid-1950s, to build and supply a military tank farm located near the present-day…
Before any more lawsuits between neighbors, the Haines Borough needs to identify and acquire access to popular public beaches and waterways. In the past three years, longtime users of Chilkoot River and Viking Cove have faced off in court against property owners and the results have been disastrous. They’ve been disastrous to residents’ pocketbooks, to neighborhood relationships, and to our…
(There are two federally recognized Indian tribes in the Chilkat Valley, the Chilkat Indian Village and the Chilkoot Indian Association. In much of this essay, I will use the word “tribe” in a more generic sense, to describe a group of people who share common beliefs and common livelihood. In Webster’s New World Dictionary, this is definition number 3 of…
People on the political left, right and center have groused to me about the borough spending $49,500 on an economic development plan. That’s not a big surprise. If there’s one thing Haines agrees on, it’s disagreement. Plus, $49,500 is real money. I have been critical of some previous borough-funded studies, including ones about the police department and borough worker morale…
I’m heartened and humbled by your show of support during the recent recall election. I intend to live up to your expectations of me. That is, to be open and fair-minded and to put in the hours required for thoughtful consideration of local issues. For most of the past year I’ve been fighting with one hand tied behind my back,…